Selectors asked India players to turn up for their state teams, but poor scheduling renders it pointless
Mumbai: For a long time, Ranji Trophy has shown all the symptoms of the apathy shown to it by the players and the cricket board (BCCI) – empty stands, lack of star players, poor wickets, bad umpiring, and no marketing.
Despite its rich history, the tournament has found itself sinking into a black hole of indifference. Every domestic cricketer wants to play IPL, and if not that, in the state T20 leagues; Ranji has now been reduced as a last recourse for players who have nothing else.
But last week, the tournament launched following a meeting of the Indian board in July 1934, found itself in focus again.
With BCCI making it mandatory for the national stars to turn out for their state teams, the fans and the media were curious to see how it would pan out. But this is nothing more than a temporary reprieve, and only shows how far down the pecking order Ranji is for BCCI.
The sixth round of Ranji games were played last week, more than two months after the previous round. Sandwiched between these two blocks was the T20 Mushtaq Ali Trophy (Nov 22 to Dec 15) – held to give IPL teams a chance to see some new talent before the auction – and the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy that ended on January 18.
The players who were in white-ball mode were expected to go into red-ball mode for a short stint before switching into white-ball mode for the season-ending IPL. This is hardly ideal.
It’s one thing to ask India internationals to play and quite another to make it enticing for them. The last time Virat Kohli — he is expected to play Delhi’s last league game at home from January 30 – played a Ranji match was in 2012 against Uttar Pradesh. Delhi had Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra while Mohammed Kaif, Suresh Raina, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Praveen Kumar were in the opposition. The line-ups were proof that the competition was in a far better place then.
Ranji Trophy is struggling to stay relevant and the reasons stretch from scheduling to the diminishing value attached to performances for national selection.
Chandrakant Pandit, a top coach who believes in thorough preparation for Ranji games, said: “I’m sure they must have given enough thought while preparing this schedule, (but) looking from the players’ and coach’s point of view, it looks a bit disordered playing red ball, then white ball and again red-ball cricket.”
Pandit, now coaching Madhya Pradesh, says first-class cricket is a different ball game, with challenging pitches and the moving ball testing a batter’s skill. He pointed out that players in red-ball cricket will next play IPL – the Ranji final is in March followed by IPL which starts later that month. “There is no continuity. They (BCCI) may be having some reason for it, so it is very difficult for me to comment. It could be because of the IPL auction (that T20 Mushtaq Ali and Vijay Hazare were held before that). But it has become very challenging for the teams,” he said.
Karsan Ghavri, coach of Saurashtra’s 2020 Ranji winning side, backed Pandit on the need for continuity. “Ranji is such a tournament that in between there shouldn’t be a long gap. One week or 10 days after the first phase is okay, but if there is a long break then the whole link breaks. It is not good for a team, especially those who are doing well. It should be in continuity; some players are in good form, their confidence is high, but if they are not playing for a month then they are back to square one,” he said.
In a nutshell, the return of the star players has provided little value. The timing too doesn’t make much sense with the next Test tour, against England, in June. The players at that point will be coming out of IPL. Go figure.
India’s next major assignment is the Champions Trophy, in February-March, and the demands of the format will be in clear contrast to the Ranji Trophy. Also, the selectors, as was reflected in the team selections in Australia, tend to give more weightage to players that have specific skill sets. Merely piling on the runs in Ranji may still not be enough.
Mumbai all-rounder Shardul Thakur feels that the challenge of the switch is greater for youngsters. “It’s a mental switch,” he says. “We do it a lot in international cricket, switching formats. For youngsters, it could be more challenging. The change in the schedule is good from the aspect that it meant that players had a longer gap between matches.”
Ajinkya Rahane, whose formidable Mumbai lost at home to Jammu and Kashmir with Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal (the Test openers) failing, said: “It’s difficult to say because it is the first time all these boys are playing between formats. We played red ball, then white ball coming back into red ball. This is not an excuse, but I feel this is a learning for all of us as a team, especially how can we do better.”
Former India and Mumbai opener Wasim Jaffer said: “I don’t mind this schedule, and I understand (the reasons), but I feel that instead of the five rounds at the start, if we can play the entire league stage at one stretch (it will work better). Then we can decide to play knockout matches later.
“Also, the time between the tournaments was very little. After Ranji got over, there were just five-six days before the white-ball tournaments began. Vijay Hazare final was on January 18 and Ranji matches were on January 23; so, the teams who played the knockout rounds or in the final had little time to switch.
The gap between red-ball cricket and the white-ball formats is growing and if India want to remain competitive in Test cricket, they will need to show that Ranji Trophy and performances in it still matter.
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